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Daniel Vavra has a magnificent beard and a DayZ T-shirt. He's squashed in a window on my screen, his image beamed direct from from his Warhorse studio in Prague. In another window is streamed a live demo of his new game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Remember that next-gen medieval role-playing game with no fantasy that so captured people's attention in December? This is it. And it's beautiful.This is 15th Century Eastern Europe recreated to a tee. Imagine a warm summer's day in the countryside, the haze from the dust, the dappled sunlight through a forest's trees, the mud tracks furrowed by ploughs. I'm seeing it now. Wattle and daub houses seem to sag in the heat, fences are twisted, wood is weathered, stones have crumbled. It's a living museum, and it's one of the most alluring rural scenes I've ever clapped eyes on.
A more orchestrated video better introduces me to the game. A king has been kidnapped by his own brother and there's unrest in the kingdom. Great catapults loose their heavy loads against hulking fortresses, a thief carefully frees a purse with a knife. An arrow hammers hard into the side of a pig in a forest, a sword is sharpened on a stone, a fist fight breaks out. Then an armoured warrior is scaling the wall of a keep on a ladder, there's a clang of swords, and then a commander gallops across a battlefield, rousing an army for the charge. Who needs fantasy?
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